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TITLE 


THE  LESSON  OF 
REFORM 

[PITTSBURGH] 

DA  TE: 

1901 


COLUMBIA  UNIVEl^ITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


Master  Negative  # 


BIDLIGGRAPHir  MTrnQFORM  TARfJFT 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


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Leffingwell,  Albert,  1845-1916  • 

The  lesson  of  reform ;  an  address  before  the  American 
humane  association,  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  October  12,  1900,  by 
Albert  LeffingAvell,  m.  d.  [Pittsburgh]  The  American  hu- 
mane association,  1901. 

32  p.    23"°. 
Volune   of  paipphlcts 


Restrictions  on  Use: 


: — . 


1.  Vivisection.     2.  Slavery. 


Library  of  Congress  HV4931.L4 


15-12814 


.-^-.* 


FILM     SIZE: 


f^ 


TECHNICAL  MICROFORM  DATA 
REDUCTION     RATIO:_i|)C. 


IMA^E  PLACEMENT:    lA    U^    IB     IIB 

DATE     FILMED: J_^^33. INITIALS__::;^_^t^ 

HLMEDBY:    RESEARCH  PUBLICATIONS.  INC  WOODBRinnR,  CT 


V 


c 


V 


Association  for  information  and  Image  {Management 

1100  Wayne  Avenue,  Suite  1100 
Silver  Spring,  Maryland  20910 

3C 1/587-8202 


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The  Lesson  of  Reform 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN 
HUMANE  ASSOCIATION,  PITTSBURG, 
PA.,    OCTOBER   12,    1900 


BY 


ALBERT   LEFFINGWELL,  M.D. 


-«•»- 


PRINTED    FOR 

THE  AMERICAN  HUMANE  ASSOCIATION 

190T 


The  Lesson  of  Reform 


;«{ 


I<EAin"  OCTOBER  /.   jqoi 

The  Vivisection  Question 


BY 


ALBERT  LEFFINGWELL,  Ml). 


1  V'>1  Svo,  bound  luil   cloth 
i^^rice.     SI. 25 

Sent     postpaid    on     receipt     of    price 


THE    TUTTLE,    MOREHOUSE    h    TAYLOR    CO. 

NEW    HAVEN,   CONN, 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN 
HUMANE  ASSOCIATION,  PITTSBURG, 
PA.,    OCTOBER   12,    1900 


BY 


ALBERT   LEFFINGWELL,  M.D 


S 


PRINTED    FOR 

THE  AMERICAN   HUMANE  ASSOCIATION 

1 901 


READY  OCTOBER  /,  igoi 

The  Vivisection  Question 


BY 


ALBERT  LEFFINGWELL,  M.D. 


1  vol.  8vo,  bound  full  cloth 
Price,    ^1.25 

Sent    postpaid    on    receipt    of    price 


THE    TUTTLE,    MOREHOUSE    &    TAYLOR    CO. 

NEW   HAVEN,  CONN. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN 
HUMANE  ASSOCIATION,  PITTSBURG, 
PA.,    OCTOBER    12,    1900 


BV 


ALBERT   LEFFINGWELL,  M.D 


PRINTED    FOR 

THE  AMERICAN   HUMANE  ASSOCIATION 

1 901 


ADDRESS. 

Mr.  President,  Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

For  what  will  posterity, — looking  backward  from  the 
vantage  of  five  hundred  years  hence,— hold  in  chief  remem- 
brance the  wonderful  Nineteenth  Century  in  whose  closing 
hours  we  are  living  to-day  ?  We  need  hardly  to  be  reminded 
that  in  material  progress,  in  great  and  useful  discoveries 
and  inventions,  this  age  has  contributed  more  than  all  the 
centuries  which  have  preceded  it,  from  the  dawn  of  civiliza- 
tion, down  to  a  hundred  years  ago.  And  yet,  I  venture  to 
doubt  whether  our  material  progress  will  so  greatly  impress 
the  future  historian  of  our  times,  as  the  fact  that  only 
during  the  Nineteenth  Century  has  the  ideal  of  humaneness 
as  a  practical  principle  of  morality  found  expression  in 
human  laws. 

Nearly  fifty  years  ago,  Macaulay,  contrasting  the  England 
of  the  past  with  the  England  of  his  own  time,  declared  that 
there  is — 

*'  scarcely  a  page  of  the  history  or  lighter  literature  of  the  seventeenth 
century  which  does  not  contain  some  proof  that  our  ancestors  were  less 
humane  than  their  posterity.     Masters,  well  born  and  bred,  were  in  the 
habit  of  beating  their  servants.     Pedagogues  knew  no  way  of  imparting 
knowledge  other  than  by  beating  their  pupils.     Husbands,  of  decent 
station,  were  not  ashamed  to  beat  their  wives.     The  implacability  of 
hostile  factions  was  such  as  we  hardly  can  conceive.     Whigs  were 
disposed  to  murmur  because  Stafford  was  suffered  to  die  without  see- 
ing his  bowels  burned  before  his  face.     ...     As  little  mercy  was 
shown  by  the  populace  to  sufferers  of  an  humbler  rank.    If  an  offender 
was  put  into  the  pillory,  it  was  well  if  he  escaped  with  his  life  from 
the  shower  of  brick-bats  and  paving  stones.     If   he  was  tied  to  the 
cart's  tail,  the  crowd  pressed  round  him,  imploring  the  hangman  to 
give  it  him  well,  and  make  him  howl.     Gentlemen  arranged  parties  of 
pleasure   to    Bridewell    on    court    days,    for    the    purpose    of   seeing 
the    wretched    women    who    beat    hemp    there,    whipped.      A    man 
pressed  to  death  for  refusing  to  plead,  a  woman  burned  for  coining, 
excited  less  sympathy  than  is  now  felt  for  a  galled  horse  or  an  over- 
driven ox.     .     .     .     The  prisons  were  hells  on  earth,  seminaries  of 


i     »'«'  •  *€.' 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


every  crime  and  disease.  At  the  Assizes,  the  lean  and  yellow  culprits 
brought  with  them  from  their  cells  an  atmosphere  of  stench  and  pesti- 
lence which  sometimes  avenged  them  signally  on  bench,  bar,  and 
jury.  But  on  all  this  misery,  society  looked  with  profound  iiidifference. 
Nowhere  could  be  found  that  sensitive  and  restless  compassion  which 
has,  in  our  time,  extended  a  powerful  protection  to  the  factory  child, 
to  the  Hindoo  widow,  to  the  negro  slave  ;  which  pries  into  the  stores 
and  watercasks  of  every  emigrant  ship,  which  winces  at  every  lash 
laid  on  the  back  of  a  drunken  soldier,  which  will  not  suffer  the  thief 
in  the  hulks  to  be  ill-fed  or  over-worked,  and  which  has  repeatedly 
endeavored  to  save  the  life  even  of  the  murderer."^ 


But  that  which  appalls  the  student  of  history  is  not 
only  the  ferocious  brutality  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
as  pictured  by  Macaulay;  it  is  the  seeming  utter  indif- 
ference to  suffering"  which  characterized  all  classes  of 
society  down  to  little  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago. 
Crime  was  punished  with  a  savage  atrocity  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  heinousness  of  the  offence.  In  no  Christian 
land  was  human  life  then  so  cheap  as  in  England;  during 
twenty-two  years  (1749-1771),  in  the  city  of  London 
alone,  no  less  than  606  persons  of  both  sexes  met  death 
on  the  scaffold  in  the  presence  of  the  rabble,  for  offences 
which  are  not  capital  to-day;  the  poor  woman  who  stole 
a  bit  of  cloth  valued  at  five  shillings  to  buy  food  for  her 
starving  children,  was  sent  to  the  gallows  without  com- 
punction, for  the  benefit  of  the  London  shopkeeper,  and 
as  an  example  to  others  who  might  be  tempted  to  steal. 
In  1773,  John  Howard,  a  country  gentleman  of  England, 
journeyed  through  his  native  land,  visiting  its  prisons  and 
jails,  and  discovering  in  them  a  state  of  misery  and  cruelty 
surpassing  belief.  The  jailors  were  generally  without  pay, 
except  such  as  they  were  able  to  extort  from  the  wretched 
victims  within  their  power.  Stagnant  sewers  festered 
beneath  cells,  and  fever  claimed  scores  of  victims  every 
year.  Prison  windows  were  found  blocked  up,  because  at 
that  time,  sunlight  was  taxed  to  furnish  the  revenue  for 
England's  wars.  Some  jails  were  the  property  of  ecclesias- 
tics.    When  the  prison  of  Ely  became  insecure  from  age, 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


5 


the  jailor  adopted  the  expedient  of  chaining  his  prisoners 
on  their  backs  to  the  floor,— their  necks  in  iron  collars,— 
so  that  the  proprietor  of  the  prison,  the  Bishop  of  Ely,  might 
be  spared  the  expense  of  repairs;    and  by  no  persuasion 
could    Howard    induce    the    bishop    to    make    a    change. 
Another  dungeon  belonging  to  the  Bishop  of  Durham,  had 
but  one  little  window ;  and  here  Howard  found  six  wretched 
prisoners  chained  to  the  floor.     "In  that  situation  they  had 
been  for  many  weeks ;  they  were  very  sickly ;  the  straw  on 
the  floor  was  worn  to  dust."     In  Plymouth,  Howard  found 
a  dungeon,  the  door  of  which  had  not  been  opened  for  five 
weeks ;   and  in  this  living  tomb,  so  low  that  one  could  not 
stand  erect,  without  fresh  air,  and  without  light,  were  three 
human  beings.     In  another  "horrid  dungeon,"  as  Howard 
calls  it,  entered  only  by  a  trap-door,  he  found  a  woman, 
who,  with  a  child  at  her  breast,  had  been  sentenced  to 
confinement  in  that  place  a  year  before.     The  child  had 
died.     It  must  be  remembered  that  imprisonment,  at  this 
period,  was  the  penalty  of  minor  offences  only ;  for  hundreds 
were  sent  to  the  gallows,  who  are  to-day  sent  to  the  work- 
house or  the  jail.     Yet  the  revelations  of  Howard  seem  to 
have  excited  only  a  throb  of  indignation  that  was   soon 
forgotten;   and  the  abuses  he  exposed,  lasted  far  into  the 
present  century. 

The  condition  of  the  insane  in  England  at  the  beginning 
of  this  century  was  equally  shocking.  Almost  anybody,  for 
instance,  could  get  a  license  to  keep  "a  mad-house," —  as 
asylums  were  significantly  called.  The  lunatic  was  treated 
as  in  a  hopeless  condition,  beyond  the  possibility  of  recovery, 
to  whom  the  only  duty  of  Society  was  effectual  restraint. 
In  1814,  a  report  was  issued  by  the  British  Parliament,  giv- 
ing results  of  a  government  inquiry  regarding  the  "State 
of  Mad-houses  in  Great  Britain."  During  the  investigation, 
it  was  found  that  ignorant  and  ferocious  keepers  had  been 
accustomed  to  indulge  in  almost  every  species  of  cruelty, 
insult  and  neglect.  Sometimes  exposed  in  cages  like  wild 
beasts,  and  excited  to  rage  for  the  amusement  of  visitors; 


6  The  Lesson  of  Reform. 

more  often  loaded  with  chains,  and  kept  in  soHtude  and 
darkness,  their  beds  but  a  little  straw ;  half  frozen  in  winter 
time,  and  half  naked  at  all  times;  treated  with  a  brutality 
beyond  expression,  and  from  which  there  was  no  possibility 
of  redress, — that  was  the  lot  of  the  lunatic  of  England 
almost  within  the  memory  of  living  men.  Some  cells  were 
on  the  bare  earth;  some  were  supplied  with  clean  straw 
but  once  a  week.  At  Bethlehem  Hospital,  of  London, 
women  were  found  naked^  chained  to  the  wall  by  an  arm 
or  a  leg;  and  among  them  one  was  discovered,  perfectly 
quiet  and  composed,  and  bitterly  sensible  of  her  surround- 
ings. Were  all  these  chains  and  fetters  necessary?  The 
highest  scientific  authorities  of  that  day,  men  of  the  longest 
experience  in  the  treatment  of  insanity,  sanctioned  their  use. 
Dr.  Thomas  Monroe,  physician-in-chief  to  Bethlehem 
Hospital  of  London  for  over  thirty  years,  testified  before 
the  Parliamentary  Committee  that  ''in  a  hospital  for  the 
insane,  there  is  no  possibility  of  having  servants  enough  to 
zvateh  a  great  number  of  patients  without  the  use  of  irons/' 
No  man  in  England  at  that  time  seemed  better  qualified  to 
express  a  scientific  opinion  on  the  treatment  of  lunatics. 
Well,  there  it  is.  Of  what  value  is  it?  Enter  to-day,  any 
great  asylum  of  America  or  Europe,  and  you  will  find,  in 
the  present  treatment  of  insanity,  how  utterly  worthless  may 
be  the  judgment  of  a  scientific  man, — even  with  thirty  years 
experience, — when  he  attempts  to  justify  a  cruelty,  or  seeks 
to  perpetuate  and  uphold  an  abuse. 

It  was  in  1828,  that  a  young  man,  whose  name,  from 
that  time,  during  more  than  half  a  century,  was  associated 
with  nearly  every  great  philanthropic  movement  of  the  age, 
— became  one  of  the  commissioners  in  lunacy  with  authority 
to  inspect  the  condition  of  the  insane.  He  visited  asylums 
and  retreats  in  various  parts  of  England  and  personally 
observed  the  abuses  that  existed.  He  saw  for  himself  the 
custom  of  chaining  lunatics  to  their  beds,  and  leaving  them 
in  that  situation,  from  Saturday  afternoon  until  Monday 
morning,  with  only  bread  and  w^ater  within  their  reach ;  he 


-t» 


!!* 


The  Lesson  of  Reform.  7 

saw  the  violent  and  the  peaceable,  the  clean  and  the  filthy 
shut  up  together  in  dark  and  disgusting  cells;  he  saw  for 
himself  all  the  horrible  customs  then  pertaining  to  the  care 
and  treatment  of  the  insane.  But  the  fact  that  astonished 
him  more  than  anything  else, — the  mystery  of  every  reform, 
— was  this:  that  the  great  mass  of  people  knew  nothing 
and  cared  nothing  about  these  cruelties;  and  it  was  only 
with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  he  could  obtain  from  any 
outside  source  the  slightest  information,  or  expression  of 
opinion.  So  horrified  was  he  with  the  misery  and  cruelty 
thus  revealed,  that  he  vowed  he  would  never  cease  plead- 
ing the  cause  of  those  helpless  victims  of  man's  cruelty, 
until  abuses  should  cease  by  legal  enactment;  and  the  Earl 
of  Shaftesbur}^  kept  his  vow. 

History,  it  is  said,  is  merely  philosophy  teaching  by 
example.  What  lessons  of  caution  and  encouragement  may 
we  gather  by  the  study  of  abuses  and  of  great  reforms? 
We,  too,  are  contending  for  the  wider  acceptance  of  humani- 
tarian ideals,  and  their  application  to  existing  evils.  Against 
us  are  marshalled  the  same  forces  of  cruelty  and  indiffer- 
ence ;  the  same  selfish  interests ;  the  same  ignorant  reliance 
upon  the  statements  of  men,  who,  by  all  means  possible,  are 
endeavoring  to  uphold  the  systematized  abuses  by  which  they 
live.  Their  opinions  confront  us;  their  authority  is  cited 
against  us.  But  what  weight  will  their  judgment  have  on 
that  day  when  reform  is  accomplished  ?  What  value  should 
be  ascribed  to  their  opinions  to-day?  Let  us  glance  some- 
what in  detail  at  the  history  of  ome  or  two  of  the  great 
humanitarian  movements  of  the  past,  noting  not  only  the 
infamy  of  the  abuse,  but  the  greater  infamy  of  its  defense ; 
pointing  out  how  the  most  hideous  cruelties  have  been 
shielded  and  upheld,  and  great  wrongs  excused  and 
defended, — in  the  past  as  they  are  to-day, — by  well-meaning 
but  misguided  men;  wrongs  which  despite  the  support  of 
respectability  and  the  advocacy  of  selfish  interests,  fell  at . 
last  before  the  outraged  conscience  of  humanity  and  passed 
away  forever. 


8 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


It  may  be  doubted  whether  in  human  history,  there  has 
ever  existed  a  more  hideous  form  of  injustice,  or  a  more 
shameful  blot  upon  civilization  than  was  the  African  Slave 
trade  of  a  century  and  a  quarter  ago.     Beginning  (so  far 
as  England  is  concerned),  by  Sir  John  Hawkins  in  1562,  it 
lasted  during  two  and  a  half  centuries  of  English  history 
without  hindrance  or  restraint.     No  pen  can  picture,  and 
no  tongue  describe  the  agony  endured  in  a  single  slave-ship 
out  of  the  thousands  that,  during  three  centuries,  brought 
Africa  to  our  shores.     ''So  much  misery  condensed  in  so 
little  room,"  said  Wilberforce,  ''the  imagination  never  con- 
ceived."    The  vessels  as  a  rule  were  from  80  to  200  tons 
burden,  and  some  of  them  were  even  smaller  than  this. 
Proceeding  from  Liverpool  or  Bristol,  from  Boston,  Provi- 
dence or  Newport,  with  a  cargo  of  rum,  a  few  trinkets 
and  bundles  of  cloth,  the  master  of  the  slave-ship  came  to 
anchor  off  the  coast  of  Guinea,  and  began  to  bargain  for 
his  cargo  of  human  beings.     One  by  one  they  were  brought 
to  him  in  canoes,  sometimes  at  night ;   and  no  questions  as 
to  rightful  ownership  ever  prevented  acceptance,  or  hindered 
trade.     Villages,  a  hundred  miles  inland,  were  attacked  at 
night,  without  regard  to  cost  of  life,  in  order  that  the  young 
and  vigorous  might  be  captured,  and  sold  to  the  Christian 
traders  in  human  flesh  and  blood.     The  slaves  when  brought 
on  board  were  at  once  ironed  and  taken  below.     Here,  on 
a  deck  sometimes  but  four  feet  high,  where  it  was  impossible 
to  stand  erect,  they  were  packed  so  closely,  that  at  night, 
they  could  not  even  turn  from  side  to  side ;   "they  had  not 
so  much  room,"  said  a  witness  before  the  Parliamentary 
Committee,   ''as  a  man  has  in  his  coffin."-     When  the  ship 
was  filled,  then  began  the  two  months'  voyage  known  as  the 
Middle   Passage.     Under  a   tropical   sky,   in   fetid   air   so 
horrible  that  the  odour  of  a  slave-ship  could  be  recognized 
for  miles  at  sea ;  in  quarters  so  poorly  ventilated,  that  some 
slaves   died   of   suffocation  nearly  every  night,   and   were 
found   when   morning   came,    shackled,   the   living   to   the 
dead;    half  starved;    suffering  often  terribly  from  loath- 


The  Lesson  of  Reform.  g 

some  disease;  tortured  without  mercy  if  in  agony  they 
resisted  or  protested  in  any  way;  sometimes  with  bones 
protruding  from  the  skin,  from  lying  in  fetters  upon  the 
bare  planks  ;2  dying  so  fast  that  often  a  quarter  of  their 
number  perished  before  the  shores  of  America  were  reached ; 
so  enfeebled  by  their  torments  that  another  large  number 
died  soon  after  reaching  land ;  and  in  many  cases,  deliber- 
ately worked  to  death  after  their  arrival,— this  was  the  fate 
of  thousands  of  human  beings  at  the  hands  of  Christian 
men,  under  the  sanction  of  Christian  society,  less  than  two 
centuries  ago ! 

What  awful  tragedies  lie  buried  in  the  forgotten  secrets 
of  that  trade!  What  cruelties  were  enacted  in  mid-ocean, 
by  the  side  of  which  the  atrocities  of  war  and  piracy  seem 
almost  to  fade  into  insignificance!  Sometimes,  in  their 
despair,  the  slaves  sought  refuge  in  suicide ;  and  cases  were 
reported  where,— having  sprung  overboard,— they  smiled 
back  at  their  tormentors  as  though  they  would  cry:  "We 
have  escaped  you  at  last !"  On  one  voyage,  a  young  woman, 
torn  from  her  family,  refused  to  eat  or  to  speak.  Every 
attempt  was  made  by  the  captain  of  the  slave  ship  to  break 
her  will ;  thumb-screws,  capable  of  causing  exquisite  agony, 
were  applied;  she  was  suspended  in  the  rigging  and  there 
flogged  and  tormented,  but  all  to  no  effect ;  in  three  or  four 
days  she  was  dead.  After  the  lacerated  body  had  been 
thrown  to  the  sharks,  some  of  the  slave-women  told  the 
surgeon  that  she  had  spoken  the  night  before  she  died. 
"What  did  she  say?"  was  his  inquiry.  "She  said  that  she 
was  going  to  her  friends,"  was  their  answer.  Perchance 
there  came  to  that  tortured  victim  the  vision  of  a  promise 
to  be  fulfilled.* 

On  another  voyage,  a  child  less  than  a  year  old,  having 
refused  to  eat  rice  mixed  with  palm  oil,  a  Captain  Marshall 
flogged  it  himself ;  ordered  its  feet  put  into  hot  water,  with 
so  little  care  that  they  were  scalded,  and  the  skin  came  off ; 
and  again  and  again  during  four  days  tortured  it  in  the 
sight  of  its  mother,  till  at  last  the  child  was  dead.     Calling 


10 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


its  mother  forward,  Capt.  Marshall  ordered  her  to  fling 
overboard  the  body  of  her  babe.  She  refused.  He  cruelly 
flogged  her,  until  at  last,  she  took  up  the  dead  child;  went 
with  it  to  the  side  of  the  ship,  and,  turning  her  head  so 
that  she  need  not  see  its  body  sw^allowed  up  by  the  sea, 
let  it  sink  beneath  the  waves,  and  then  'Svept  for  hours." 

Now  and  then  a  sick  child  wailed  so  much  at  night  that  it 
annoyed  the  captain, — and  it  was  torn  from  the  mother's 
breast  and  flung  overboard  to  the  sharks.  On  one  occasion 
some  slaves  made  a  little  noise  at  night,  disturbing  the 
captain's  slumbers ;  and  in  punishment,  he  ordered  up  eight 
or  ten ;  tied  them  up  in  the  rigging  and  flogged  them  with 
a  scourge  of  wire;  clapped  on  the  thumb-screws,  and  left 
them  to  writhe  in  torment  while  he  went  back  to  sleep.  "I 
have  seen,"  said  the  witness,  ''the  ends  of  their  thumbs 
mortified,  from  having  been  thumb-screwed  so  violently," 
and  some  of  them  died.^ 

In  1783,  a  Capt.  Collinwood  of  the  slave-ship  "Zong" 
with  many  sick  slaves  on  board,  found  himself,  after  a  long 
journey  near  the  coast  of  America.  If  the  negroes  should 
die  on  board  the  ship,  the  owners  of  them  would  have  to 
bear  the  loss;  if  on  the  other  hand,  under  pressure  of 
circumstances,  the  captain  cast  the  cargo  overboard,  then 
the  loss,  provided  he  had  sufficient  excuse,  would  by  Eng- 
lish law,  fall  upon  the  underwriters.  On  the  plea  that  he 
was  short  of  water,  Capt.  Collinwood  threw  alive  into 
the  sea  132  of  his  slaves,  and  on  returning  to  England, 
demanded  payment  for  their  loss!  The  insurers  naturally 
refused;  but  the  law  was  plain,  and  the  courts  actually 
compelled  them  to  pay  for  the  murdered  slaves. 

These  are  incidents  of  that  traffic,  of  which  Wilberforce 
said:  "If  the  wretchedness  of  any  one  of  the  many  hundred 
negroes  stowed  in  each  ship  could  be  brought  before  his 
view,  and  remain  within  the  sight  of  the  African  merchant, 
—7ifJiose  heart  could  bear  it?  Never  was  there  a  system  so 
big  with  wickedness  and  cruelty." «  "Even  if  the  objects  of 
this   traffic,"    said   Charles   Fox,   "were  brute   animals,   no 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


II 


humane  person  could  expose  them  to  be  treated  with  such 
w^anton  cruelty.  This  nation  will  not  long  permit  the  con- 
stant commission  of  crimes  that  shock  human  nature,  for 
the  sake  of  the  West  Indies."  "Why  ought  the  slave-trade 
to  be  abolished?"  thundered  William  Pitt;  ''Because  it  is 
incurable  injustice f'  It  was,  he  declared,  "the  greatest 
practical  evil  that  ever  has  afflicted  the  human  race;  the 
severest  and  most  extensive  calamity  recorded  in  the  history 
of  the  world." " 

How  insignificant  seem  sometimes  the  beginnings  of  a 
great  reform!  In  1785,  the  University  of  Cambridge 
offered  a  prize  for  the  best  essay  on  the  academic  question 
"whether  it  be  allowable  to  hold  human  beings  in  slavery?" 
A  young  man,  Thomas  Clarkson,  decides  to  compete  for 
the  prize;  and  among  the  scanty  literature  of  description 
and  protest,  he  finds  a  book,  written  by  Anthony  Benezet, 
an  obscure  Quaker  of  Pennsylvania,  and  published  in  Phila- 
delphia in  1771.  Its  revelations  excite  his  horror;  he'studies 
the  question  yet  more  completely ;  and  finally  determines  to 
devote  his  life  to  that  agitation  for  abolition  which  lasted 
over  twenty  years.  Then,  to  the  soul  of  a  woman  came  the 
thought  that  popular  agitation  is  not  sufficient ;  that  before 
any  eifective  work  can  be  done,  the  question  must  come  up 
before  the  British  Parliament;  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  a  young  man  not  yet  thirty  years  old,  con- 
sents to  bring  up  the  question  in  debate;  and  so  William 
Wilberforce  makes  the  abolition  of  the  Slave-trade  and  the 
cause  of  the  oppressed  the  work  of  his  life.  In  1788,  a 
Committee  was  appointed  to  take  evidence ;  and  so,  gradually, 
the  whole  infamous  traffic  was  brought  to  the  light  of  day. 

More  than  one  man  who  had  been  engaged  in  the  slave- 
trade  testified  to  enormities  of  which  he  had  been  aware. 
How  familiar  to  all  of  us  are  the  hymns  of  John  Newton : 
''One  there  is  above  all  others,'  "Amazing  grace!  how  sweet 
the  sound,''  "Safely  through  another  week,"  "How  sweet  the 
name  of  Jesus  sounds,"  and  others  found  in  every  modern 
collection.     Yet  it  was  the  author  of  these  hymns,  then  a 


12 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


venerable  clergyman  nearly  seventy  years  of  age,  who  told 
the  Parliamentary  committee  of  what  he  had  seen  forty 
years  before,  when  he  had  been  captain  of  a  slave-ship, 
and  had  landed  cargoes  of  negroes  on  our  shores. 
"Unlimited  power,"  says  Newton,  ''when  the  heart  by  long 
familiarity  with  the  suffering  of  slaves  is  become  callous 
and  insensible  to  the  pleadings  of  humanity,  is  terrible.  I 
have  seen  them  sentenced  to  unmerciful  whippings,  until 
the  poor  creatures  had  not  power  enough  to  groan.  I  have 
seen  them  agonizing  for  hours, — I  believe  for  days, — under 
the  torture  of  the  thumb-screws."  He  stated  that  often 
he  had  heard  a  captain  boast,  that  after  repressing  an 
attempt  of  his  cargo  of  slaves  to  escape,  ''he  studied  with 
no  small  attention  how  to  make  the  death  of  the  leaders 
as  excruciating  as  possible."  Four  times  did  Newton  cross 
the  Atlantic  in  command  of  a  slave-ship.  Of  his  cargo 
about  one-fourth  were  children;  and  in  selling  them  upon 
their  arrival  in  South  Carolina  or  the  West  Indies,  the  idea 
of  keeping  children  with  their  parents  "was  never  even 
thought  of;  they  were  separated  as  sheep  and  lambs  are 
separated  by  the  butcher."  ^ 

Against  personal  testimony  of  eye-witnesses  to  its  cruelty, 
how  did  those  who  were  pecuniarily  interested  in  maintain- 
ing the  slave-trade  manage  to  prevent  all  legal  interference 
for  nearly  twenty  years  ?  How  may  an  infamy  be  defended  ? 
We  wonder  sometimes  what  words  of  apology  could  possibly 
be  uttered  in  support  of  so  atrocious  a  system  of  cruelty. 
Yet  the  task  is  not  difficult.  It  was  done  precisely  as  it  is 
done  to-day,  in  the  matter  of  vivisection.  The  American 
Humane  Association  has  asked,— not  that  animal  vivisec- 
tion be  abolished,  but  simply  that  it  shall  be  placed  under 
such  Government  supervision  as  may  prevent  wanton  cruel- 
ties and  abuse.  Our  proposals  are  met  by  the  same 
methods  which  were  adopted  a  century  ago  in  regard  to  the 
slave-trade,— by  a  denial  of  cruelty  and  by  evasion  of  the 
truth;  by  claim  of  necessity,  and  by  favorable  testimony 
of  eminent  men  in  support  of  the  system.     Let  us  note  the 


A, 


I 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


13 


character  of  the  evidence  which  was  brought  forward  in 
support  of  the  slave-trade. 

Mr.  John  Fountain,  called  upon  to  testify  before  a  Parlia- 
mentary Committee,  June   15th,   1789,  stated  that  he  had 
lived  on  the  African  coast  for  eleven  years,  and  had  never 
even  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  kidnapping  a  slave!      On 
several  occasions  he  had  made  trips  to  the  West  Indies  on 
slave-ships,  and  he  declared  that  the  negroes  were  treated 
"exceedingly  well  indeed."     He  had  mingled  with  them  on 
the  main  deck,  and  found  them  "perfectly  satisfied,  and  at 
all  times  very  cheerful,"— just  as  the  late  Harold  Frederick, 
describing  in  the  Neiv  York  Times  his  visit  to  Horsley's 
laboratory,   declared  that  he  found  the  animals,   "all  fat, 
cheerful,  and  jolly;   the  cats  apparently  unconcerned  as  to 
their  brain-loss;    and  the  monkeys  quite  unaffected  by  the 
removal  of  a  spinal  cordT^     Another  witness  testified  that 
on  slave  ships,   "the  song  and  dance  were  promoted," — 
neglecting  to  explain  that  by  "singing,"  he  meant  the  wailing 
of  the  slaves;    and  that  by  "dancing,"  he  referred  to  the 
custom  of  bringing  the  negroes  on  deck,  once  or  twice  a 
day,  and  forcing  them  by  the  lash,  to  jump  up  and  down 
in  their  chains.     Other  witnesses  declared  that  "the  abolition 
of  the  slave-trade  would  be  an  act  of  cruelty  to  the  negro 
himself."     "The  total  abolition  of  the  trade  by  all  nations," 
testified  Mr.  Fountain,  "would  produce  a  scene  of  carnage 
from  one  end  of  the  African  coast  to  the  other."     "The 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade,"  said  another  witness,  "would 
be  the  ruin  of  the  colonies,  destructive  to  the  slaves  already 
in  them;   and  be  the  most  impolitic  act,  the  greatest  inhn- 
manity  and  breach  of  faith  zvhich  this  country  could  ever 
pass,"^^  an  absurd  statement  equalled  only  by  that  of  Dr. 
William  W.  Keen,  who  gravely  declared  that  the  Senate  bill 
for  the  supervision  of  vivisection  in  the  District  of  Columbia 
was    "a  most  cruel  and  inhuman  effort  to  promote  human 
and  animal  misery,"    and  a  serious  menace  to    ''the  cause 
of  humanity r  '^'^ 

Of  course  there  was  the  usual  appeal  to  selfish  interests. 


H 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


15 


If  the  slave-trade  were  abolished  in  England,  it  would  simply 
be  carried  on  by  the  Americans  with  whom  of  late  years 
it  had  ''particularly  increased."  Admiral  Hotham  declared 
that  ''the  African  slave-trade  is  a  nursery  for  British  sea- 
men ;  without  doubt,  it  is  important  to  keep  it  up."  Com- 
modore Gardner  said:  "I  consider  that  if  the  slave-trade  is 
abolished,  there  is  an  end  to  the  colonies!''  Sir  John  Bailing, 
formerly  governor  of  Jamaica,  declared  that  if  the  slave- 
trade  were  abolished,  "by  degrees,  it  would  be  the  ruin  of 
every  proprietor,  and  produce  beggary  to  his  descendants; 
and  by  degrees  also,  I  am  afraid, — commercially  speaking, — 
bankruptcy  in  this  country."  Mr.  Jenkinson,  a  member  of 
Parliament,  asserted  that  "the  cause  of  Humanity  is  against 
abolition."^-  Another  member  of  Parliament  admitted  that 
it  was  "an  unamiable  trade,"  but  he  "would  not  gratify  his 
humanity  at  the  expense  of  the  interests  of  his  country; 
and  we  should  not  too  curiously  inquire  into  the  unpleasant 
circumstances  by  which  it  was  attended."  Lord  Rodney, 
Vice  Admiral  of  England,  declared  that  the  abolition  of  the 
slave-trade  "would  greatly  add  to  the  naval  power  of 
France,  and  diminish  that  of  Great  Britain  in  proportion." 
Admiral  Sir  Peter  Parker  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade  "must,  in  time,  destroy  nearly 
half  our  commerce,  and  take  away  from  Great  Britain  all 
pretention  of  being  the  first  Maritime  Power  in  the  world,"^^ 
— just  as  Dr.  Kober  of  Washington  told  the  United  States 
Senate,  that  a  bill  bringing  the  practice  of  vivisection  under 
the  inspection  of  the  United  States  Government  "would  be 
simply  one  step,  and  that  an  important  one, — in  the  direc- 
tion of  dealing  a  death-blow  to  the  progress  of  American 
medicine  !"^"^  Col.  Tarleton,  in  sneering  tones  with  which  we 
are  all  familiar,  referred  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  "that 
philanthropy  which  the  abolitionists  fallaciously  esteem  to 
be  their  vantage  ground," — precisely  as  President  Eliot  of 
Harvard  University,  with  equal  accuracy  and  good  taste, 
asserted  that  the  advocates  of  anti-vivisection  laws  "con- 
sider themselves   more   humane   and   merciful   than   their 


"li 


A' 


i^ 


1 


i 

*. 


% 
V;- 


opponents."  ^^  "By  abolition,"  continued  Col.  Tarleton, 
"several  hundred  ships,  several  thousand  sailors,  and  some 
inillions  of  industrions  mechanics  will  lose  their  employ- 
ment, and  be  rendered  worse  than  useless.  If  I  were  an 
enemy  to  the  constitution  of  England,  I  would  vote  for  the 
abolition  of  the  African  slave-trade!" 

How  singular  all  this  seems  to  us  to-day !  The  slave-trade 
was  abolished  eighty  years  ago.  Did  "carnage  from  one 
end  of  the  African  coast  to  the  other"  ensue?  Did  England 
then  fall  from  her  position  as  a  great  maritime  power,  and 
did  France  step  into  her  place?  Did  several  "millions"  of 
mechanics  find  themselves  without  employment  and  worse 
than  useless?  Was  half  the  commerce  of  England 
destroyed?  May  it  not  be  more  than  probable  that  when 
posterity  shall  look  back  upon  those  who  to-day  oppose  any 
reform  to  the  abuses  of  vivisection,  they  will  regard  their 
opposition  with  the  same  contempt  with  which  we  esteem  all 
this  evidence  for  the  slave-trade,  given  a  hundred  years  ago  ? 

But  the  strongest  argument  advanced  in  favor  of  slavery 
or  the  slave-trade  was  that  which  is  so  familiar  to  us 
regarding  vivisection, — the  denial  of  any  abuse.  Eng- 
land desired  to  know  the  condition  of  the  slaves  in  the 
West  Indies.  Were  they  deliberately  worked  to  death 
under  the  lash,  and  their  places  supplied  by  new  arrivals? 
That  assertion  had  been  made.  Never  is  *  it  difificult  to 
obtain  evidence  in  support  of  cruelty  when  selfish  interests 
are  concerned ;  and  slavery  in  the  West  Indies  was  defended 
by  some  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the  time,  with 
the  same  emphasis  and  eagerness  evinced  in  our  day  by 
illustrious  personages  in  defence  of  the  practice  of  unre- 
stricted vivisection.  Witness  after  witness,  summoned 
before  the  Parliamentary  Committee,  testified  that  the  condi- 
tion of  the  negro  in  the  West  Indies  was  far  superior  to 
that  of  the  laboring  poor  upon  English  soil.  Gilbert 
Franklyn  of  Antigua,  West  Indies,  declared  that  the  lot  of 
the  negro  slave  "is  to  be  envied  by  the  poor  of  all  countries 
I  have  seen."     Sir  Ashton  Warner  Byam,  the  Attorney- 


*; 


i6 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


17 


General  for  Granada,  said :  'The  condition  of  slaves  who  are 
industrious  is  comfortable  and  happy,  and  they  appear  per- 
fectly contented  with  their  lot.     ...     A  negro  slave  in 
general  has  fewer  wants  unsatisfied,  and  enjoys  more  of  the 
comforts   of   life   than   the   English   laborer."      Mr.   John 
Castles,  a  surgeon  and  slave-owner  who  had  resided  in  the 
West  Indies  for  over  twenty  years,  declared  that  compared 
with  the  condition  of  the  laboring  poor  in  England,  the  negro 
slave  was  ''much  more  comfortable;"    and  that  he  had  an 
occasion  to  remark  this  fact  in  a  journey  which  he  had  just 
taken  through  England  and  Scotland.     Mr.  Robert  Thomas, 
who  had  resided  in  the  West  Indies  for  nine  years,  compar- 
ing the  condition  of  the  common  laborers  and  poor  people 
in  England  with  those  of  the  slaves,  emphatically  declared 
that  "the  slaves  have  a  decided  superiority  with  respect  to 
every  comfort  of  life."     Dr.  Samuel  Athill,  of  the  Island 
of  Antigua,  said :  "I  think  the  situation  of  the  negro  and  his 
family  is  much  more  free  from  cares,  miseries  and  mortifica- 
tions than  that  of  the  peasant  in  many  parts  of  this  country." 
But  even  higher  testimony  was  sought;    and  the  com- 
manders of  great  fleets  and  navies  which  had  made  the 
West  Indies  the  base  of  their  operations,  were  summoned 
to  give  evidence.     "What  has  your  Lordship  observed  of 
the  behaviour  of  masters  toward  their  negro  slaves  in  those 
islands  where  you  have  commanded?"  was  asked  of  Lord 
Admiral  Shuldham.     "It  has  been  mild,  gentle  and  indul- 
gent in  all  respects;   equal  to  what  masters  generally  show 
to  their  servants  in  this  Kingdom."     The  negroes.  Admiral 
Shuldham  said,  "in  general,  appear  perfectly  satisfied.     I 
can  remember  when  I  was  a  midshipman  that  I  envied  their 
condition,  and  often  wished  to  he  in  the  same  situation  T'^^ 
The  Honorable  Admiral  Barrington  being  asked  the  same 
question,  declared  that  the  slaves  were  treated  with  "always 
the  greatest  humanity ;"  that  when  rather  disconsolate  him- 
self,— "I  have  seen  them  so  happy  that  /  wished  myself  a 
negro  T'^'^    Vice- Admiral  Arbuthnot  had  "never  observed  the 
smallest  cruelty  toward  slaves."     Rear- Admiral  Hotham  had 


^ 


% 


J 


-a: 
\ 

I 


known  the  West  Indies  ever  since  boyhood ;  had  noticed  that 
the  treatment  of  slaves  was  generally  "mild  and  humane; 
very  much  so ;"  and  he  declared  that  "slaves  were  always 
very  well  satisfied  with  their  condition,  and  very  cheerful." 
Sir  Ralph  Payne,  formerly  Governor  of  the  Leeward  Islands, 
averred    that    he    never    saw    a    slave,    "the    severity    of 
whose  labour  was  by  any  means  comparable  with  that  of 
the  day-labourer  in  England."     Admiral  Sir  Peter  Parker 
declared  that  "from  the  best  observation  I  could  make,  their 
treatment  was  mild,  lenient  and  humane ;   I  never  heard  of 
even  one  instance  of  severity  toward  a  slave ;  they  not^only 
appeared  to  me  to  be  properly  fed,  clothed  and  lodged,  but 
were  in  my  opinion  in  a  more  comfortable  situation  than  the 
lower  class  of  any  people   in  Europe,   Great  Britain  not 
excepted/' ^^    And  finally  Lord  Rodney,  the  Vice-Admiral 
of  England,  who  had  resided  in  Jamaica  over  three  years, 
never  saw  any  instance  of  cruelty,  and  asserted  that  slaves 
"at  Jamaica  appeared  to  be  much  better  fed  than  the  com- 
mon laboring  people  here."^^ 

How  curious  all  this  testimony  seems  to  us  to-day !     How 
shameful,  you  say,  how  infamous  it  was  for  men  standing 
so  high  in  the  esteem  of  England,  to  stoop  to  cast  the  weight 
of  their  national  reputation  in  favor  of  slavery  and  the  slave- 
trade!     Infamous,  does  one  call  it?     That  is  too  harsh  a 
term  even  for  so  great  a  blunder.     Wherein  do  these  old 
warriors  differ  from  the  men  of  high  position  and  national 
repute,  who,  in  our  time  and  country  have  not  hesitated  to 
cast  the  glamour  of  their  names  over  the  practice  of  vivisec- 
tion carried  on  to  any  possible  extent,  without  legal  restric- 
tion or  restraint  ?     In  imagination,  we  see  these  bronzed  and 
scarred   heroes   of  England's   navy,   giving  their  evidence 
regarding  cruelties  which  they  had  "never  seen,"  and  which 
therefore  they  were  certain  did  not  exist ;  Admirals  Shuld- 
ham and  Barrington  ridiculously  declaring  that  the  lot  of  the 
negro  slave  in  the  West  Indies  was  so  full  of  exuberant 
felicity  and  content  as  to  excite  their  envy ;  Hotham  affirm- 
ing the  slaves  to  be  "always  very  well  satisfied  with  their 


Tft, 


m 


i8 


The  Lesson  of  Reform, 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


19 


condition;"  Arbuthnot  stating  that  he  never  observed  "the 
smallest  cruelty," — why  are  these  opinions  a  whit  more 
shameful  or  absurd  than  posterity  will  regard  those  of  the 
chemists,  geologists  and  astronomers  of  the  National 
Academv  of  Sciences  who  declared  without  a  dissentine  voice 
(and  with  no  better  opportunities  for  judgment),  that  ''the 
suffering  incident  to  biological  investigations  is  trifling  in 
amount r-^  Does  it  seem  almost  like  a  play,  the  strange  folly 
of  it  all  ?  There,  in  fancy,  we  see  the  two  chief  commanders 
of  England's  navy,  Admiral  Sir  Peter  Parker,  and  Lord 
Rodney,  Vice-Admiral  of  England,  each  bending  under  the 
weight  of  many  years  spent  in  his  country's  defense;  each 
hastening  to  put  himself  on  record  for  all  time  to  come,  as 
a  defender  of  the  greatest  infamy  the  world  had  ever  known, 
— the  "incurable  injustice"  of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade! 
Well,  side  by  side  with  this  picture  of  Sir  Peter  Parker, 
impartial  history  may  one  day  paint  that  of  President  Eliot 
of  Harvard  University,  writing  a  committee  of  the  Ameri- 
can Senate  to  the  effect  that  a  scientific  vivisector  must  needs 
be  the  supreme  and  only  judge  of  his  own  actions,  since 
"the  Government  cannot  provide  any  board  of  officials  com- 
petent to  testify  to  (his)  fitness;"  protesting  against  "all 
such  legislation;"  allowing  that  vivisection  should  not 
be  permitted  "before  College  classes  for  purpose  of  demon- 
stration only," — evidently  ignorant  that  it  is  so  used  in 
the  University  over  w^hich  he  presides.-^  There  stands 
my  Lord  Rodney;  and  by  his  lordship's  honored  name, 
posterity  may  place  that  of  the  Right  Reverend  William 
Lawrence,  Bishop  of  Massachusetts,  hastening  from  Cam- 
bridge to  Washington  to  help  impede  passage  of  a  bill, — 
not  for  the  abolition  of  vivisection, — but  simply  for  the 
restriction  of  its  abuses;  vouching  for  the  humanity  of  his 
vivisecting  friends  as  my  Lord  Rodney  vouched  for  the 
humanity  of  the  slave-masters  of  Jamaica;  and  making 
charges,  for  the  support  of  which, — when  their  accuracy  was 
challenged, — he  had  not  a  particle  of  proof  !^^  The  dust 
of  the  old  Admirals  moulders  beneath  their  marble  tombs 


under  the  dome  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral;  men  remember 
what  they  did  for  England,  and  forgive  them  their  mis- 
takes. Perchance  a  century  hence,  when  humane  ideas  are 
realized  in  law^  and  custom  as  they  are  not  to-day,  History 
in  its  review  of  our  generation,  will  find  occasion  for  the 
same  strange  contrast  of  noble  character  wdth  dishonoring 
advocacy;  the  same  opportunity  for  forgiveness;  the  same 
pity  and  regret. 

I  do  not  propose  to  tell  the  story  of  that  long  struggle; 
it  Avas  an  agitation  that  in  the  British  Parliament  lasted 
nearly  twenty  years.  Hopeless,  indeed,  it  must  have  seemed 
that  moral  ideas,  based  upon  unselfish  principles,  could  ever 
prevail  against  the  opposition  of  cruelty  and  greed.  Year 
after  year,  in  the  British  Parliament,  Wilberforce  brought 
forward  his  resolution  for  the  abolition  of  the  Slave-trade, 
only  to  have  it  meet  repeated  defeat.  Sneers  at  his  philan- 
thropy became  the  fashionable  jest;  the  Duke  of  Clarence 
in  the  House  of  Lords  denounced  him  by  name  as  a  fanatic 
and  hypocrite;  even  George  the  Third,  in  some  moment  of 
lucidity,  whispered  one  day  in  his  ear :  "How  go  your  black 
clients,  Mr.  Wilberforce?"  Judging  from  the  strength  of 
the  forces  in  opposition,  the  public  indifference,  the  long 
delays,  the  scorn  and  contempt  so  freely  outpoured,  even 
friends  of  the  movement  could  not  but  fear  at  times  that  he 
would  never  succeed.  From  his  death-bed,  John  Wesley 
wrote  to  Wilberforce,  in  probably  the  last  letter  which 
ever  came  from  his  pen:  "Unless  Divine  Power  has  raised 
you  up  to  be  an  Athanasiiis  contra  mundiim,  I  do  not  see 
how  you  can  go  through  with  your  glorious  enterprise,  in 
opposing  that  execrable  villainy  which  is  the  scandal  of 
religion,  of  England,  and  of  human  nature.  Unless  God 
has  raised  you  up  for  this  very  thing,  you  will  be  worn  out 
by  the  opposition  of  men  and  devils ;  but  if  God  be  for  you, 
who  can  be  against  you?"  Triumph  at  last  came  to  the 
cause  for  which  he  had  so  faithfully  labored.  In  1807, 
Parliament  abolished  the  slave-trade,  and  made  it  illegal 
after  the  following  year.     In  181 1,  it  was  made  a  felciiy; 


20 


The  Lesson  of  Reform, 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


21 


fA 


in  1S20,  it  was  made  piracy,  and  punishable  with  death. 
Where  now  in  the  world's  esteem  are  they  who  testified  that 
to  the  maintenance  of  the  power  of  England,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  keep  up  that  sum  of  all  villainies,— that  curse  of 
mankind?  Where  in  the  world's  esteem  a  century  hence, 
will  be  the  opinions  of  those,  who  in  our  day  are  not  ashamed 
to  assert  that  for  the  maintenance  of  Medical  Science  and 
the  benefit  of  mankind,  it  is  necessary  to  permit  vivisectio'n 
to  be  absolutely  without  limitation  or  control  ? 

Let  us  glance  now  at  the  history  of  another  of  the  great 
humanitarian   movements   of   this   century;    the   agitation 
which  led  to  the  reform  of  factories  and  coal-mines  in  Great 
Britain.     The  horrors  pertaining  to  them  at  the  beginning 
of  the  century  we  can  but  faintly  conceive ;  indeed,  in  some 
respects    they   probably    surpassed    in    enormity    even   the 
abominations  of  slavery.     Child-labor  had  become  profitable ; 
and  the  horrible  custom  grew  up  in  England,  of  sending 
pauper   children    from    agricultural    districts,    to    be    liter- 
ally worked  to  death  in  the  factories  of  the  North.     Packed 
in  wagons  like  calves  or  sheep,  they  went  unconsciously  to 
their  doom.     I  wish  there  were  time  to  dwell  somewhat 
upon    the    conditions,    which    even    then, — and    for   many 
years    afterwards,— prevailed    in    English    factories    where 
boys  and  girls  were  employed.     One  of  the  worst  abuses 
revealed   by   Parliamentary   inquiry,   was   the   brutality   of 
overseers  exhibited  toward  the  little  children,  who,   from 
utter  weariness  and  lack  of  sleep,  were  physically  unable  to 
perform  their  tasks.     Living  thus  in  a  state  of  constant 
apprehension  and  acute  suffering;    beginning  work  at  five 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  ending  after  seven  at  night; 
steeped  in  ignorance  and  want;   dwarfed  alike  in  soul  and 
body;    without  the  slightest  redress  from  cruelty,  without 
hope  of  escape  from  their  slavery ;   dying  long  before  their 
time, — human   sacrifices  to  avarice, — this   was  the   condi- 
tion of  the  child-slaves  of  England  less  than  sixty  years 
ago.     Then  it  was  that,  writing  to  Lord  Ashley,  the  poet 
laureate  Robert  Southey  declared:  ''I  do  not  believe  that 


anything  more  inhuman  has  ever  disgraced  human  nature 
in  any  age.  Was  I  not  right  in  saying  that  Moloch  is  a 
more  merciful  fiend  than  Mammon?  Death  in  the  arms 
of  the  Carthaginian  idol  was  mercy  to  the  slow  waste  of 
life  in  the  factories!"  Then  from  the  heart  of  another 
English  poet  came  that  indignant  cry  of  sympathy  and 
anguish : 

"  Do  you  hear  the  children  weeping,  O  my  brothers, 
Ere  the  sorrow  comes  with  years? 
They  are  weeping  in  the  playtime  of  the  others, 
In  the  country  of  the  free. 

They  know  the  grief  of  man  without  his  wisdom  ; 

They  sink  in  man's  despair,  without  his  calm  ; 
Are  slaves,  without  the  liberty  in  Christendom  ; 

Are  martyrs  by  the  pang  without  the  palm. 

They  look  up  with  pale  and  sunken  faces, 

And  their  look  is  dread  to  see  ; 
"How  long,"  they  say,  "how  long,  O  cruel  nation, 

Will  )'^ou  stand, — to  move  the  world, — on  a  child's  heart  ; 
Stifle  down  with  a  mailed  heel  its  palpitation, 

And  tread  onward  to  your  throne  amid  the  mart  ? 
Our  blood  splashes  upward,  O  gold-heaper. 

And  your  purple  shows  your  path  ; 
But  the  child's  sob  in  the  darkness  curses  deeper 

Than  the  strong  man  in  his  wrath."  -^ 

"Ah,"  you  say,  "who  had  the  heart  to  withstand  this 
bitter  cry  of  the  children?  Who  could  object  to  making 
their  working  time  in  the  factories  but  ten  hours  a  day?" 
Well,  among  those  who  made  reform  impossible  for  twenty 
years  were  some  of  the  noblest  and  best  men  in  England; 
men  such  as  Richard  Cobden  and  John  Bright  and  John 
Arthur  Roebuck,  to  whom  in  no  small  degree,  the  English 
people  owe  the  abolition  of  the  Corn  laws,  the  vote  by 
ballot  and  Parliamentary  Reform.  Cobden  and  Bright 
stood  for  peace  when  nearly  all  England  was  clamoring  for 
war;  they  were  the  firm  friends  of  freedom  in  those  dark 
days  of  our  civil  war,  when  official  England  was  almost 


'>'> 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


23 


readv  to  recognize  the  southern  confederacy;  yet  neither 
Cobden  nor  Bright  could  be  made  to  see  that  anything  in 
the  factory  system  demanded  parHamentary  interference. 
They  were  not  alone  in  their  blindness;  Gladstone,  whose 
long  after-life  was  in  so  many  ways  devoted  to  humanity, 
opposed  the  ten-hour  bill  for  women  and  children; 
O'Connell,  who  knew  well  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  could  see 
none  needing  redress  in  the  factories  of  Lancashire;  the 
venerable  Lord  Brougham,  zealous  as  he  had  been  for  popular 
education,  for  Catholic  Emancipation,  for  suppression  of 
the  Slave  trade,  the  abolition  of  slavery,  and  other  reforms, 
— nevertheless  spoke  strongly  in  the  House  of  Lords  as 
late  as  1847,  against  the  bill  for  factory  reform.  Sometimes 
we  marvel  how  great  and  good  men  of  our  own  time  can  be 
so  blind  to  the  cruelties  of  unregulated  vivisection  as  to 
oppose  the  slightest  measure  of  State  supervision.  But 
nothing  that  Harvard's  president  has  ever  said  against  the 
legal  regulation  of  scientific  experimentation  upon  living 
animals  can  begin  to  equal,  in  either  bitterness  or  emphasis, 
the  speeches  made  by  Cobden  and  Bright  against  factory 
reform.  They  lived  to  see  the  principle  of  State  supervision 
regarding  labor  carried  to  an  extent  that  even  its  friends 
had  not  dreamed  possible ;  so  that  dangerous  machinery  had 
to  be  fenced ;  so  that  children  and  young  people  were  for- 
bidden to  clean  it  while  in  motion;  so  that  their  hours  of 
labor  were  not  merely  limited,  but  fixed  by  law;  so  that 
their  continuous  employment  was  forbidden  to  exceed  a 
certain  number  of  hours ;— they  lived  to  see  all  this,  and 
to  see  England  greater,  and  happier  and  more  prosperous 
than  ever  before. 

There  came  a  time,  after  reform  was  accomplished, 
that  one  man  had  the  rare  courage  to  confess  his  mistake. 
In  i860,  Mr.  Roebuck  arose  in  the  House  of  Commons  and 
acknowledged  that  he  had  been  wrong  in  his  opposition  to 
factory  reform,  but  declared  that  it  had  been  based  on  the 
statements  of  the  millowners  of  Lancashire.  "They 
declared,"  said  Mr.  Roebuck,  "that  it  was  the  last  half-hour 


of  work  performed  by  their  operatives,  which  made  all 
their  profits ;  and  that  if  we  took  away  that  last  half-hour, 
we  should  ruin  the  manufacturers  of  England.  I  listened 
to  that  statement, — and  trembled  for  the  manufacturers 
of  England!  Parliament  passed  the  bill.  From  that  time 
down,  the  factories  of  England  have  been  under  State  con- 
trol, and  I  appeal  to  this  House  whether  the  manufacturers 
of  England  have  suffered  by  this  legislation?" 24  When  the 
physiological  laboratories  of  America  shall  have  been  for  ten 
years  under  State  control,  perhaps  we  may  have  a  like  con- 
fession, from  some  who  now  are  "trembling"  for  the  science 
of  medicine ! 

In  a  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Shaftesbury, — whose  efforts  for 
reform  he  had  so  long  and  so  violently  opposed, — Mr. 
Roebuck  referred  to  the  influences  by  which  he  had  been 
so  grievously  misled: 

"The  present  state  of  these  poor  women  and  children  is  a  serious 
lesson  to  all  legislators.  It  teaches  us  in  a  way  not  to  be  mistaken, 
that  we  ought  never  to  trust  to  the  justice  and  humanity  of  masses  of 
men  whose  interests  are  furthered  by  injustice  and  cruelty.  The 
slaveowners  in  America,  the  manufacturer  in  England,  though  they 
may  be  individually  good  men,  will  nevertheless,  as  slaveowners  and 
masters,  -be  guilty  of  atrocities  at  ivhich  Humanity  shudders  ;  and  will^ 
before  the  worlds  with  unblushing  faces.,  defend  cruelties  from  which  they 
would  recoil  with  horror.^  if  their  moral  judgments  were  not  perverted  by 
their  self-interest'' 

There  is  the  secret  of  the  opposition  to  reform !  Whether 
on  the  deck  of  the  slave-ship,  or  in  the  dungeons  of  the 
madhouse  and  the  jail,  in  the  factories  of  Lancashire  or  in 
the  private  laboratory  of  the  physiologist, — cruelty  is  ever 
the  offspring  of  unlimited  and  irresponsible  power,  and 
ever  able  to  summon  to  her  defence  those  who  "would  recoil 
with  horror,  if  their  moral  judgments  were  not  perverted 
by  their  self-interest." 

Another  phase  of  the  same  great  humanitarian  movement, 
was  that  relating  to  the  coal-mines  of  England.  The  con- 
ditions pertaining  to  them  previous  to  the  present  century. 


V 


/' 


,t-  :^.:  t.Z:<t 


24 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


25 


we  can  never  know.  Now  and  then  we  find  the  record  of 
some  awful  explosion,  some  terrible  loss  of  life;  but  only 
the  great  accidents  were  reported;  and  every  day,  human 
beings,  young  and  old,  were  drowned,  suffocated  or  crushed, 
and  no  record  made.  It  was  not  until  1833,  that  some  of 
the  real  facts  concerning  coal-mining  began  to  be  generally 
known,  although  full  comprehension  of  the  truth  did  not 
come  for  several  years.  What  was  the  condition  of  affairs 
here  discovered  when  the  light  of  inquiry  was  fairly 
thrown  on? 

It  was  a  state  of  things  that  one  would  almost  hesitate 
to  believe  could  exist  in  a  Christian  country.     In  the  first 
place,  the  coal-mines  of  Great  Britain, — like  laboratories  for 
the  vivisection  of  animals, — were  entirely  free  from  official 
inspection  of  any  kind;    and  within  them,   anything  was 
possible.     Working  from  twelve  to  fourteen  hours  a  day; 
confined  in  narrow   spaces,  breathing  air  mixed  with  gas 
and  dust,  and  in  heat  so  great  that  sometimes  the  candles 
would  melt ;  liable  at  any  moment  to  be  crushed  or  wounded, 
or    imprisoned    to    die    of    slow    starvation, — these, — the 
ordinary  circumstances  of  the  miners'  daily  lives, — caused 
them  to  become  especially  subject  to  disease,  deformity  and 
premature  death.     It  was  found  that  children  were  taken 
into  the  mines  at  a  very  early  age,  that  the  workhouses 
of  London  sent  down  batches  of  orphans  to  be  ''broken  in" ; 
and  if  the  unhappy  child  survived  his  treatment  till  he  was 
nine,  he  was  apprenticed  to  the  miner  and  forced  to  serve 
him  until  he  was  twenty-one.     Sometimes  a  small  child's 
task   was   sitting   in   pitchy   darkness,   twelve   to    fourteen 
hours  a  day,  and  at  intervals,  opening  and  shutting  a  gate ; 
sometimes  the  little  apprentices  were  forced  by  their  masters 
to  enter  places  so  dangerous,  that  the  miners  themselves  did 
not  dare  to  go,  till  they  had  tested  the  extent  of  the  risk, 
by  first  sending  their  little  slaves.     Some  of  the  passages 
were  less  than  two  feet  high ;  and  along  these,  tiny  children 
were  forced  to  push  or  drag  little  wagons  laden  with  coal. 
With  backs  bruised  and  cut  by  knocking  against  the  roofs 


3? 


% 


M 


of  the  narrow  passages;  with  feet  and  legs  often  covered 
with  ulcers ;  so  hungry,  that  they  were  often  glad  to  pick 
up  and  devour  the  tallow  candle-ends  which  the  miners  had 
thrown  aside ;  exposed  to  every  kind  of  fatal  accident,  and 
never  seeing  the  sunshine  except  on  Sunday, — this  was  the 
fate  of  child-slaves  in  England,  within  the  memory  of  living 
men! 

There  were  yet  even  darker  shadows.  In  many  parts  of 
England  and  Scotland  it  had  become  the  custom  to  have 
girls  and  young  women  work  in  the  coal-mines,  performing 
every  description  of  labor,  from  hewing  out  the  coal  to 
dragging  it  in  tubs,  and  in  some  places,  carrying  it  on  their 
backs  up  the  rickety  ladders  to  the  surface  of  the  ground. 
Girls,  naked  to  the  waist,  harnessed  with  leathern  girdles 
about  their  hips,  hitched  to  iron  chains,  and  crawling  on 
hands  and  feet  in  the  darkness  of  the  pit ;  subjected  to  every 
peril;  associating  with  the  worst  and  most  degraded  men; 
constantly  witnessing  blackguardism  and  debauchery ;  listen- 
ing to  blasphemy  and  obscenity;  working  under  these 
surroundings  from  long  before  daylight  until  long  after 
dark ;  ruined  in  body,  ruined  in  mind,  and  in  time  bringing 
bastard  children  upon  the  parish; — this  was  the  picture 
— revealed  to  Christian  England  in  the  nineteenth  century, — 
of  the  white  slavery  on  British  soil ! 

It  was  not  until  1842,  that  Lord  Ashley,-^afterward  the 
Earl  of  Shaftesbury, — succeeded  in  bringing  the  first  bill 
for  reform  into  the  British  Parliament.  He  proposed,  in 
the  first  place,  to  prohibit  the  employment  of  boys  before 
the  age  of  thirteen;  to  abolish  the  apprentice  system  of 
pauper  orphans,  and  to  take  women  and  girls  from  the  coal- 
pit altogether.  Perhaps  you  will  imagine  that  after  revela- 
tions which  I  have  ventured  only  faintly  to  outline,  such 
a  measure  would  meet  with  general  approval  on  the  part  of 
every  rational  person?  On  the  contrary,  these  suggestions 
of  change  aroused  the  most  bitter  opposition.  From  whom 
do  you  ask  ?  Why,  chiefly  from  the  proprietors  of  the  coal- 
mines,— acting  precisely  as  the  proprietors  and  directors  of 


-■■►J- 


26 


The  Lesson  of  Reform, 


¥1 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


27 


laboratories  for  vivisection  in  this  country  act  in  regard  to 
all  measures  for  legal  regulation.  Owners  of  collieries  in 
every  part  of  Great  Britain  poured  petitions  into  Parliament, 
beseeching  the  rejection  of  the  bill, — just  as  Congress  has 
been  besieged  with  similar  requests  from  almost  every  vivi- 
section laboratory  in  the  United  States.  Their  arguments 
were  precisely  those  with  which  we  are  familiar.  In  the 
first  place,  they  asserted  that  no  abuses  existed ;  or,  if  there 
were  any,  they  had  been  vastly  exaggerated;  just  as  certain 
Harvard  Professors  once  referred  to  printed  evidence  con- 
cerning the  abuses  of  vivisection,  as  "long  lists  of  atrocities 
that  never  existed," — denying  in  one  sweeping  sentence 
facts  as  certain  as  any  recorded  in  history.-^  It  was  said 
that  if  women  and  children  were  taken  out  of  the  mines, 
they  would  only  be  driven  into  the  workhouse,  or  become 
a  public  charge.  One  member  of  Parliament  declared  that 
some  seams  of  coal  ''could  only  be  worked  by  women," — 
beyond  which  absurdity  could  hardly  go  further.  Another 
member  of  Parliament  insisted  that  the  occupation  of  a  coal- 
miner  was  generally  considered  "a  remarkably  pleasant  and 
cheerful  employment!"  The  motives  of  Lord  Shaftesbury 
and  those  who  urged  reform  wxre  ascribed  to  ''hypocritical 
humanity," — precisely  as  a  leading  vivisector  in  the  Agri- 
cultural Department  at  Washington,  writing  to  a  public 
journal  of  that  city,  referred  in  terms  of  customary  courtesy 
to  "the  so-called  Humane  Society,"  which,  he  said,  ''prates 
so  loudly  about  Altruism,  morality  and  ethical  principles 
generally."^®  Altogether,  in  the  opinion  of  the  owners  of 
coal-mines,  any  legislation  affecting  them  was  as  unwise  and 
uncalled-for,  as  the  State  supervision  of  vivisection  is 
regarded  by  President  Eliot  and  by  every  vivisector  in  this 
country. 

But  no  section  of  the  proposed  law  aroused  such  fierce 
antipathy  as  the  clause  providing  for  the  legal  and  systematic 
visitation  of  coal-mines  by  inspectors  appointed  by  the 
Government;  just  as  no  section  of  the  Bill  before  the 
United    States    Senate   for   the   regulation   of  vivisection, 


excites  such  angry  protests  as  that  which  opens  the  doors  of 
the  Go\  ^^nment  laboratories  to  an  inspector  appointed  by 
the  President  of  the  United  States.     All  such  supervision 
of  coal-mines  was  declared  by  the  owners  to  be  "a  useless 
and  mischievous  prying  into  private  affairs,"  precisely  as 
various   distinguished   vivisectors    and   their   friends    have 
declared   that   the   proposed   governmental    supervision   of 
vivisection   would   be   "unnecessary   and   offensive  in   the 
highest  degree/'^'     Speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
Lord  Radnor  insisted  upon  the  principle  that  "it  was  not  the 
duty  of  the   State   to   enforce   moral   obligations."     Lord 
Brougham,  one  of  the  most  eminent  men  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  distinguished  alike  for  his  learning,  eloquence  and 
philanthropy,  declared  that  this  legislation  was  "mistaken 
humanity"; — precisely  as  those  eminent  vivisectors.  Bow- 
ditch  and  Porter,  Stiles  and  Sternberg  and  others,  refer  to 
the  legal  regulation  of  vivisection  as  "one  of  the  least  wise 
of    the    agitations    which    beset    modern    society."      Lord 
Londonderry  went  so  far  in  his  opposition  as  to  declare 
that  he  would  say  to  an  inspector,  "You  may  go  down  into 
the  pit  as  best  you  can ;   and  when  you  are  down,  you  may 
remain  there!"     Even  Lord  Ashley,  the  promoter  of  the 
bill,  was  inclined  to  question  whether  subterranean  inspec- 
tion of  coal-mines  would  be  quite  safe.     Yet,  when, — with 
some  modifications, — the  bill  became  a  law,  not  one  of  the 
terrible  results,  so  fearfully  prophesied,  ever  came  to  pass. 
The  coal-mining  industry  was  not  ruined.      Women  and 
girls,  taken  from  the  coal-pits,  found  other  and  more  decent 
avocations.     Children,  no  longer  forced  to  be  slaves  in  the 
darkness  of  the  pit,   did  not  flock  to   the  workhouse,  or 
become  beggars  on  the  street.     The  Government  Inspectors 
went  down  into  the  mines  and  found  no  one  so  reckless  as 
to  lift  a  finger  against  them,  or  hinder  them  in  the  discharge 
of  their  duties.     The  law  was  obeyed. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  that  all  subsequent  legislation  on 
this  subject  resulted  from  evidence  made  known  through  that 
inspection  of  mines  by  government  officials,  which  had  been 


28 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


29 


so  long  and  so  strenuously  opposed.     For  instance,  over  a 
thousand  lives  of  coal-miners  had  been  sacrificed  in  coal- 
pits every  year.     "You  cannot  prevent  such  accidents  as 
these,"  cried  the  owners  of  the  mines;    ''they  are  but  the 
mysterious    visitations    of    an    inscrutable    and    All-Wise 
Providence."     "You  can  lessen  them  by  suitable  legislation ; 
for  they  are  largely  the  result  of  your  carelessness  and 
indifference,"  was  the  rejoinder.     And  when  the  awakened 
humanitarian  sentiment  of  England  came  to  realize  that  only 
wise  legislation  was  needed  to  make  human  life  safer  in  the 
mines,  it  was  not  very  long  before  such  laws  found  their 
place  on  the  statute  book.     What  was  the  outcome?     Every 
law   that   was   passed,   tending   to   make   inspection   more 
efficient,    and    the    mine-owners    more    careful    of    human 
life,  had  the  almost  immediate  effect  of  decreasing  the  num- 
ber of  fatal  accidents.     During  ten  years  (1851-1860),  for 
every  million  tons  of  coal  raised  to  the  surface,  the  loss  of 
human  lives  in  the  coal-mines  of  England  averaged  14  per 
year.     During  the  next  ten  years  (1861-1870),  the  annual 
sacrifice  of  human  life  fell  to  11;    from  1871  to  1880,  it 
came  down  to  9;    and  from  1881   to  1889,— although  the 
mines  were  continually  getting  deeper  and,  in  that  respect, 
more  dangerous, — the  mortality  had  fallen  to  only  6  deaths 
per  year,  to  each  million  tons  of  coal  raised  to  the  surface. 
You  see  it  is  only  necessary  to  get  at  the  facts  through 
evidence  that  cannot  be  disputed, — and  the  reform  of  abuse 
is   simply  a   question  of  time.     This   is   why   government 
inspection, — whether  of  factories,  coal-pits  or  laboratories 
for  vivisection — is  always  so  stubbornly  resisted:    it  opens 
the  door  for  reform.     It  is  a  significant  fact  that  from  the 
first  bill  of  1842  down  to  the  last,  of  all  measures  introduced 
into  Parliament  providing,  by  the  more  thorough  inspection 
of  coal-pits,  for  the  greater  protection  of  human  life,  there 
was    not    one, — not    one, — w^hich    did    not    encounter    the 
strenuous  antipathy  of  the  men  who  had  an  interest  in  the 
coal-mines,  and  in  concealment  of  their  defects.     History 
repeats  itself,  and  we  have  no  reason  for  wonder  at  the 
opposition  that  confronts  us  on  this  point. 


1 
t 


»; 


6 


It   is   because    I    think   that   such    records   of   the   past 
are  profoundly  encouraging  to   us,   that   I   have  brought 
them  again  to  mind.      What  can  they  teach  us?      Well, 
in    the  first   place,    it    seems    to    me    that    History    incul- 
cates  no   clearer   lesson   than   the   duty   of   disregard    for 
the   eminence   of  names,    when   they  are   put   forward   in 
defence    of    systematized    cruelty,    or    for    the    hindrance 
of   reform.      Men   point   to   some   ripe   scholar,   adorning 
the  presidency  of  a  great  institution  of  learning;   to  some 
ecclesiastic,  representing  the  highest  dignity  of  his  church, 
or  to  some  official  at  the  head  of  a  Government  laboratory ; 
and  because  such  men  are  against  us,  we  are  told  to  cease 
all  agitation  for  reform.     And  then  History  lifts  a  curtain, 
and  we  see  Daniel  Webster  standing  in  the  Senate  Chamber 
on  March  7,  1850,  advocating  the  passage  of  the  Fugitive 
Slave  law;    we  see  the  venerable  Lord  Brougham  in  the 
British  House  of  Lords,  using  his  vast  influence  to  keep 
women  and  children  in  the  coal-mines ;  we  see  Cobden  and 
Bright  and  Gladstone  palliating  and  defending  the  awful 
atrocities  of  the  factory  system ;  we  see  some  of  the  wisest 
and  best  men  in  the  American  pulpit  of  fifty  years  ago, 
defending  the  infamy  of  American  slavery.     For  never  was 
there  a  great  cruelty  or  abuse  that  could  not  enlist  the 
championship  of  respectability,  or  bring  to  its  support  the 
influence  of  illustrious  names. 

And  the  next  lesson  which  History  teaches  us  is 
patience.  In  that  promulgation  of  humane  ideals  to  which 
this  Association  is  devoted,  progress  seems  sometimes  very 
slow.  We  call  attention  to  that  cruelty  of  fashion  which 
demands  for  feminine  adornment  the  sacrifice  of  song-birds 
almost  by  the  million, — and  the  vast  majority  of  fashion- 
worshippers  pay  no  heed.  We  denounce  the  brutalities 
incident  to  cattle-transport,  and  no  great  outburst  of 
popular  indignation  demands  their  suppression.  Year 
after  year,  we  ask,  not  that  vivisection  be  abolished,  but 
only  that  it  be  placed  under  the  supervision  of  the  State, 
so  that  abuses  which  have  repeatedly  evoked  the  condemna- 


n/ 


30 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


tion  of  the  most  eminent  men  of  science  in  Europe  and 
America,   may  be  somewhat  lessened.     It   seems  as   Httle 
to  ask  as  the  demand,  made  over  fifty  years  ago,  that  coal- 
mines should  be  made  safer,  or  that  hours  for  child-labor  in 
factories  should  be  reduced;   yet  the  same  selfish  interests, 
helped  and  supported  by  the  complaisance  and  ignorance  of 
well-meaning  men,  rise  in  opposition,  and  the  years  of  agita- 
tion seem  almost  fruitless  of  result.     But,  was  it  not  always 
so?      Never    in    the    world's    history    was    there    speedily 
accomplished  the  reform  of  an  organized  injustice  which 
depended  for  support  upon  the  selfish  interests  of  mankind. 
From  the  day  when  Anthony  Benezet  began  his  agitation 
against  the  "incurable  injustice"  of  the  slave-trade,  till  the 
accursed  traffic  was  made  piracy  by  English  laws, — almost 
half   a    century    rolled   by.      From   the    time    when   John 
Howard  first  penetrated  the  gloomy  dungeons  of  his  native 
land,  till  its  prison  system  was  reformed,  more  than  sixty 
years  passed,  and  Howard  was  in  his  grave.     The  keepers 
of  private  mad-houses  in  England  as  fiercely  resisted  inspec- 
tion and  legal  supervision  as  those  who  are  opposing  it  to- 
day ;  but  the  light  at  last  penetrated  the  private  dungeon,  as 
one  day  it  will  penetrate  the  private  laboratory.     Against  the 
inhumanity  and  greed  of  the  owners  of  coal-mines,  it  took 
long  and  weary  years  of  agitation  to  accomplish  any  appreci- 
able   reform.      For   twenty   years,    the    factory-owners    of 
England  were  enabled  to  prevent  reduction  of  the  hours  of 
toil   for  women   and   children;    but   the   great   forces   of 
humanitarian   sentiment   prevailed   at   last.      Courage   and 
patience,— these  are  the  words  for  us.     Nature  takes  her 
time ;   she  will  not  be  hurried ;   and  we  too,  working  faith- 
fully,  can  wait  with   confidence   for   the   sunrise   of  that 
higher  civilization,  which  is  yet  to  dawn  upon  a  suffering 
world.     Are  we  in  a  minority?     So  once  were  Wilberforce 
and    Clarkson,    Shaftesbury    and    Howard.      There    is    no 
slavery  more  degrading  to  character  than  the  ignoble  fear 
of  standing  for  truth  and  justice  without  the  muUitude's 
clamouring  approbation  and  support. 


The  Lesson  of  Reform,  31 

"He's  a  slave  who  dare  not  be 

In  the  right  with  two  or  three  ; 
He's  a  slave  who  dare  not  choose 

Hatred,  slander  and  abuse, 
Rather  than  in  silence  shrink 

From  the  truth  he  needs  must  think." 

In  a  Struggle  with  the  forces  of  ignorance,  cruelty 
and  self-interest,  let  us  not  be  wanting  in  that  fidelity 
to  truth  which  was  the  consolation  of  Spinoza  in  his  solitude, 
and  which  helped  Galileo  to  stand  alone ;  in  that  hatred  of 
injustice  which  animates  our  work;  in  that  devotion  to 
Humanity  and  humane  ideals,  which  has  ever  been  the 
inspiration  of  all  conflict  with  oppression  and  cruelty ;  which 
has  ever  carried  to  eventual  victory  all  great  reforms. 


32 


The  Lesson  of  Reform. 


NOTES. 

^  History  of  England,  Chap.  III. 

2  Evidence  of  Surgeon  Falconbridge  before  Parliamentary  Com- 
mittee, 1790. 

2  Surgeon  Falconbridge  testified  that  even  the  sick  had  nothing  but 
bare  planks  to  lie  upon. 

■*  Evidence  of  George  Millar. 

^  Testimony  of  Henry  Ellison. 

^Speech  in  House  of  Commons,  May  13,  1789. 

'  Speech  in  House  of  Commons,  April  2,  1792. 

*  In  addition  to  his  testimony  before  the  Parliamentary  Committee, 
Rev.  Mr.  Newton,  in  1788,  published  a  little  book  :  "  Thoughts  upon 
the  African  Slave-Trade  "  in  which  he  gave  a  relation  of  his  experi- 
ences. He  says  :  "  I  hope  it  will  always  be  a  subject  of  humiliating 
reflection  to  me  that  I  was  once  an  active  instrument  in  a  business  at 
which  my  heart  now  shudders."  For  a  transcript  of  personal  experi- 
ence, read  his  hymns  beginning  :  "  In  evil,  long  I  took  delight,"  and 
"  Amazing  grace." 

^  London  correspondence  of  New  York  Times\,  October  30,  1892. 

^*^  Testimony  of  Alex.  Campbell,  Esq. 

^'  See  editorial  in  Journal  of  the  American  Medical  Association^  Dec. 
23,  1899. 

^^  Speech,  House  of  Commons,  April  2,  1792. 

^2  Testimony,  March  29,  1790. 

^^  Hearing  on  Vivisection,  Feb.  1900,  p.  iii. 

^^  Hearing  on  Vivisection,  Feb.  1900,  p.  219. 

^^  Evidence  given  March  23,  1790,  p.  404. 

^''Evidence  of  March  23,  1790,  p.  405. 

^^  Evidence  of  March  29,  1790,  p.  479. 

^^  Evidence  of  March  29,  1790,  p.  468. 

-•^Senate  Report  No.  1049  (Fifty-fourth  Congress),  p.  128. 

-^  Hearing  before  Senate  Committee  on  the  District  of  Columbia, 
Feb.  21,  1900,  on  Bill  for  the  further  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals, 
page  219. 

-■^  Same,  p.  34.  For  correspondence  here  referred  to,  see  ''Journal 
of  Zodphily^"  Sept.  1900. 

'^  I  have  given  only  a  few  detached  sentences  from  Mrs.  Browning's 
pathetic  poem. 

'^^  London  Times,  March  22,  i860. 

^^  Statement  in  Boston  Transcript,  July  13,   1895. 

26  Letter  of  Daniel  E.  Salmon,  D.V.M.,  in  the  Washington  Post  of 
Feb.  4,  1896. 

2^  Report  on  Vivisection,  No.  1049  (54th  Congress),  p.  185. 


\*' 


